Perspectives from Israel: 'It won't stop until we talk'

On Facebook, my former Israeli and Palestinian students from Jerusalem make anguished pleas for the justice of their positions in the current clash between Israeli and Hamas.

This is what they have to say. On the causes: An Israeli perspective -- "I am always amazed anew at the inability of so many western leaders to back their human rights rhetoric by calling a spade a spade. While the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict may be complex, years of rockets on Israeli towns is not. What would you do if rockets were striking your cities?" A Palestinian perspective -- "You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, steal my land, imprison my father, BUT I am to blame: I shot a rocket back."

On the results: An Israeli perspective-- "Yesterday, the children of Ashkelon spent the day hiding under their desks from rockets fired from Hamas." A Palestinian perspective-- The label under a Facebook picture of a smiling, beautiful toddler reads, "I'm a dangerous terrorist!!!!!! Israel killed me today. Now Israel is in peace because I am dead."

These arguments are not new to me. The screech of the sirens warning of incoming rockets is new as well as the ensuing adrenaline rush. Two days ago at dinner with friends in their Tel Aviv home, we sat immobilized at the siren sound. Since Hamas rocket fire had never reached Tel Aviv, we thought it was a drill, but when the TV announced it was real, we headed to the safety of the stairwell. It was the boom that finally shook us from our denial to reality. Then last night just as my wife and I sat down to dinner in Jerusalem, the same sound and adrenaline rush and another trip to the stairwell.

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These two relatively risk-free events did make me understand more viscerally the fear residents of Israel's southern cities and the Gazans must feel from the rockets and the planes. I have always understood the arguments each side makes and I continue to be convinced that both are wrong.

In the short run, Israel may take away Hamas' ability to fire rockets into Israel. Yet how long will it take Hamas, with Iran's help, to acquire more powerful and more accurate rockets to renew their assaults in the next round? In 2008-2009 Israel tried the same tactics and there was quiet for a time. Then Hamas rockets could not reach Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem is under fire although the rockets reaching here don't appear to be capable of causing significant damage-at least not yet. Hamas can continue to shoot its rockets now and in four years and for as long as it has them. But the Israelis are not going away and neither are the Palestinians.

Forgive the pun, but this is not rocket science. So, given the obvious folly of both positions, is it hopeless? Probably, but I do see a ray of hope. My Palestinian students' posts do not mention Hamas. I discern they are identified with their fellow Palestinians in Gaza and not with Hamas politics. On the Israeli side, there are commentators arguing against a ground incursion into Gaza and respected politicians are saying that Bibi Netanyahu should be talking to non-Hamas Palestinian President Abu Mazen. The New York Times journalist Tom Friedman said before this latest crisis that President Obama has too much on his plate to get involved in this conflict. It is true that his plate is full, but the current horror gives him an opportunity to bring about a cease-fire and force Abu Mazen and Netanyahu to the bargaining table. This is not just his opportunity, it is his obligation.

In my collection of memorabilia from British Mandate, pre-Israel, pre-Facebook Palestine, my favorite piece is a handbill dated May 13, 1948, two days before Israel's Declaration of Independence. It pictures Arab and Jewish farmers tilling the soil and it says "To all Citizens of Palestine, Cease Fire and Talk." Sixty--four years later an Israeli friend's Facebook post makes the same point about the only sensible way out of this mess, "It won't stop until we talk."

Murray Richtel was a district court judge in Boulder from 1977 to 1996. He holds dual citizenship in the United States and Israel.

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